Getting Ubuntu running on my PMID701i was a piece of cake!
The 12.10 pre-releases are really smooth on this tablet, and I'm very pleased with the performance.
Working hardware/drivers:
* Unaccelerated framebuffer/X11, using fbdev until I can figure out the Mali driver.
* Touchscreen, with 5-point multitouch (tested with QT demos.) I had to make a small modification to the ft5x_ts driver, otherwise it doesn't register a click when you touch the screen.
* CPU frequency scaling! I've heard people saying the A10 reboots when clocked over 1152MHz, but with proper cooling and/or voltage settings, we may be able to overclock further. I don't want to try though, because my tablet gets hot even at 1GHz. Underclocking works (60MHz-1GHz supported, 1-1.5GHz possible but not recommended), but I'm unsure about undervolting.
* WiFi works using the kernel rtl8150 driver (8192cu.ko).
* Audio works, however by default (ondemand cpufreq governor runs @60MHz) it is slow and extremely choppy. Workaround: different CPU frequency or governor (sudo apt-get install cpufrequtils indicator-cpufreq).
Needs work:
* Battery indicator is messed up - it says "no battery present" until you plug in a charger, but after that it reports the percentage.
* Mali GPU. See http://rhombus-tech.net/allwinner_a1...river_for_A10/
* CedarX video accelerator, needs closed-source drivers. This might be required to use the video-out jack.
* USB Host should work fine, but I haven't ordered an OTG cable yet. A USB gender changer will NOT work!
Let the tutorial commence!
Requirements:
* 2GB microSD card. 4GB or more highly recommended!
* Computer running Linux. Ubuntu 12.04 LiveCD recommended for Windows users.
* Git and ARM toolchain installed: sudo apt-get install build-essential gcc make git-core gcc-arm-linux-gnueabi
* Optional: Android Debug Bridge from the Android SDK for copying files to/from your tablet.
* Basic command line knowledge, spare time, and patience!
Step 1: Format/partition your microSD card from your computer
Please make sure the card is empty or you have backups of its contents before doing this.
In theory, you can keep its contents intact since all you're doing is resizing the FAT partition to make room for a Linux partition and installing a bootloader. Just remember that I won't assume responsibility if you lose any important data following these steps.
The following steps use GNU parted, which is a command-line program. You can try GParted (sudo apt-get install gparted) for an easier GUI tool, but the steps are basically the same.
From inside parted, determine how much space you need on the FAT partition.
You'll need to leave 2MB free at the beginning for the bootloader and at least 2GB for a new Linux partition. On a small (<4GB) card, 32MB will suffice as a minimum size for the FAT partition. If you want to continue storing data on the FAT partition, resize accordingly.
Step 2: Build/obtain the kernel, script.bin, and bootloader
I might post pre-built binaries soon, but in the meantime, it doesn't hurt to try building them yourself.
For the bootloader, we will be using U-boot (github.com/hno/uboot-allwinner).
Check out https://github.com/hno/uboot-allwinner/wiki if you get confused.
For the kernel, we'll be using github.com/amery/linux-allwinner.
Step 3: Obtain/build the root filesystem!
Ubuntu, Debian, MeeGo/Nemo, Tizen, Fedora, Arch, Gentoo, and Slackware Linux all have ARM ports, so unless you like Ubuntu as much as I do, you're welcome to try something else!
You have several options here. I recommend downloading an Ubuntu-core daily build (http://cdimage.ubuntu.com/ubuntu-cor...e-armhf.tar.gz), but you can try an OMAP3/4 Ubuntu Desktop image if you have enough space and loop-mounting patience, which I don't :P
Just extract it to your Linux partition like so:
Now install your kernel modules and prepare the filesystem for usage:
Step 4: Unmount and remove your SD card from your computer, insert it in your tablet, and power it on!
Make sure you install onboard or use a USB keyboard, otherwise you won't be able to log in.
Have fun!
The 12.10 pre-releases are really smooth on this tablet, and I'm very pleased with the performance.
Working hardware/drivers:
* Unaccelerated framebuffer/X11, using fbdev until I can figure out the Mali driver.
* Touchscreen, with 5-point multitouch (tested with QT demos.) I had to make a small modification to the ft5x_ts driver, otherwise it doesn't register a click when you touch the screen.
* CPU frequency scaling! I've heard people saying the A10 reboots when clocked over 1152MHz, but with proper cooling and/or voltage settings, we may be able to overclock further. I don't want to try though, because my tablet gets hot even at 1GHz. Underclocking works (60MHz-1GHz supported, 1-1.5GHz possible but not recommended), but I'm unsure about undervolting.
* WiFi works using the kernel rtl8150 driver (8192cu.ko).
* Audio works, however by default (ondemand cpufreq governor runs @60MHz) it is slow and extremely choppy. Workaround: different CPU frequency or governor (sudo apt-get install cpufrequtils indicator-cpufreq).
Needs work:
* Battery indicator is messed up - it says "no battery present" until you plug in a charger, but after that it reports the percentage.
* Mali GPU. See http://rhombus-tech.net/allwinner_a1...river_for_A10/
* CedarX video accelerator, needs closed-source drivers. This might be required to use the video-out jack.
* USB Host should work fine, but I haven't ordered an OTG cable yet. A USB gender changer will NOT work!
Let the tutorial commence!
Requirements:
* 2GB microSD card. 4GB or more highly recommended!
* Computer running Linux. Ubuntu 12.04 LiveCD recommended for Windows users.
* Git and ARM toolchain installed: sudo apt-get install build-essential gcc make git-core gcc-arm-linux-gnueabi
* Optional: Android Debug Bridge from the Android SDK for copying files to/from your tablet.
* Basic command line knowledge, spare time, and patience!
Step 1: Format/partition your microSD card from your computer
Please make sure the card is empty or you have backups of its contents before doing this.
In theory, you can keep its contents intact since all you're doing is resizing the FAT partition to make room for a Linux partition and installing a bootloader. Just remember that I won't assume responsibility if you lose any important data following these steps.
The following steps use GNU parted, which is a command-line program. You can try GParted (sudo apt-get install gparted) for an easier GUI tool, but the steps are basically the same.
Code:
sudo apt-get install parted sudo fdisk -l # Identify your SD card's block device name. (e.g. /dev/sdc or /dev/mmcblk0 for built-in card readers.) sudo parted /dev/mmcblk0 # Substitute the correct name if necessary.
You'll need to leave 2MB free at the beginning for the bootloader and at least 2GB for a new Linux partition. On a small (<4GB) card, 32MB will suffice as a minimum size for the FAT partition. If you want to continue storing data on the FAT partition, resize accordingly.
Code:
# Type this inside parted: resize 1 2M 2000M # (Change 2000M to the size you determined for your FAT partition.) # Then make a new Linux partition: mkpart primary ext4 # Pay attention, it might ask you for start/end sizes. # When you're done, type: quit
I might post pre-built binaries soon, but in the meantime, it doesn't hurt to try building them yourself.
For the bootloader, we will be using U-boot (github.com/hno/uboot-allwinner).
Check out https://github.com/hno/uboot-allwinner/wiki if you get confused.
Code:
git clone https://github.com/hno/uboot-allwinner.git mkdir ~/Polaroid && cd ~/Polaroid cd uboot-allwinner make sun4i CROSS_COMPILE=arm-linux-gnueabi- # Now install it on your SD card. Substitute your actual block device. It doesn't matter whether it's mounted or not since the bootloader lives in the 2MB of unpartitioned space before your FAT partition. Still, be careful with these commands! sudo dd if=spl/sun4i-spl.bin of=/dev/mmcblk0 bs=1024 seek=8 sudo dd if=u-boot.bin of=/dev/mmcblk0 bs=1024 seek=32
Code:
cd ~/Polaroid mkdir modules git clone https://github.com/amery/linux-allwinner.git cd linux-allwinner make ARCH=arm sun4i_crane_defconfig make ARCH=arm menuconfig # The default config should work fine, but I'll upload my custom config later if anyone's interested. nano drivers/input/touchscreen/ft5x_ts.c # In ft5x_ts_release(), around line 1223, change the #else to an #endif and delete the #endif after "input_report_key(data->input_dev, BTN_TOUCH, 0);" so it reports BTN_TOUCH in multitouch mode. make ARCH=arm CROSS_COMPILE=arm-linux-gnueabi- uImage -j4 make ARCH=arm CROSS_COMPILE=arm-linux-gnueabi- modules -j4 make ARCH=arm modules_install INSTALL_MOD_PATH=../modules # Mount the FAT partition on your SD card. I usually label the partition "SD" so it mounts at /media/SD, but your mountpoint will probably differ. cp arch/arm/boot/uImage /media/SD adb shell mkdir /mnt/nanda adb shell mount /dev/nanda /mnt/nanda adb pull /mnt/nanda/script.bin /media/SD/ adb shell umount /mnt/nanda adb shell rmdir /mnt/nanda
Ubuntu, Debian, MeeGo/Nemo, Tizen, Fedora, Arch, Gentoo, and Slackware Linux all have ARM ports, so unless you like Ubuntu as much as I do, you're welcome to try something else!
You have several options here. I recommend downloading an Ubuntu-core daily build (http://cdimage.ubuntu.com/ubuntu-cor...e-armhf.tar.gz), but you can try an OMAP3/4 Ubuntu Desktop image if you have enough space and loop-mounting patience, which I don't :P
Just extract it to your Linux partition like so:
Code:
sudo tar xvf ~/Downloads/quantal-core-armhf.tar.gz -C /media/Ubuntu # This assumes your new Linux partition is mounted at /media/Ubuntu. It won't be mounted there unless you label the partition in [G]parted. Open Nautilus or your file manager and locate its mount point.
Code:
sudo cp -a ~/Polaroid/modules/* /media/Ubuntu sudo apt-get install qemu-user-static sudo cp /usr/bin/qemu-arm-static /media/Ubuntu/usr/bin/ sudo chroot /media/Ubuntu # Now you're in an emulated ARM chroot! apt-get update # You may have to edit /etc/apt/sources.list to add the universe repository. apt-get dist-upgrade apt-get install lightdm gnome-session-fallback onboard # OR... apt-get install plasma-active # OR... apt-get install lightdm e17 lxde xfce4 apt-get install ubuntu-desktop # Be prepared for no free space and lots of stuff you don't need! # etc. Now configure a non-root user: adduser ubuntu addgroup --system admin usermod -a -G admin ubuntu mkdir /media/SD # Permanent mount point for your FAT partition echo "/dev/mmcblk0p2 / auto defaults 0 1">>/etc/fstab echo "/dev/mmcblk0p1 /media/SD auto defaults 0 0">>/etc/fstab exit
Make sure you install onboard or use a USB keyboard, otherwise you won't be able to log in.
Have fun!
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